Stenciling still makes an impression

Leave it to Martha to put a hip spin on stenciling, a craft that had a heyday in the 1980s with country-kitchen borders of painted geese, ivy and pineapples.

An article in the September issue of Martha Stewart Living shows some stenciling projects that would be at home in a sleek urban loft. Particularly good-looking are the linen pillows stenciled with circles that look slightly out of register. ItÂ?s a simple matter of stenciling the pillows twice: first with a set of white circles, then shifting the stencil a bit and applying circles in a darker color of paint. The same treatment is used on a chocolate-brown drum lamp shade, using white and robinÂ?s-egg blue circles.

The magazine also uses circular stencils to update a traditional wallpaper with flowers and butterflies on a black background. The metallic blue circles are stenciled in a regimented grid atop the free-form vines. ItÂ?s a subtle but effective juxtaposition.

Also in this issue:

Jazz up the mats of framed pictures by drawing borders on them with paint, ink or regular or colored pencils. The borders can be thin, perhaps a single line of India ink, or fatter for more contrast. YouÂ?ll need drafting tape to make nice crisp lines, and keep the pencils well sharpened.

A New York couple decided to forgo frames altogether when they put together a grouping of family photos. They slipped the 8-by-10-inch black-and-white photos in plastic holders, the kind you might use for a report, and stuck them on the wall with tacks in a 4-by-4 grid. This arrangement makes it easy to swap out photos as the kids grow.

Size of the screen

Buying a new TV? Throw out the old rules you may have heard about screen size in relation to room dimensions and sofa placement. With todayÂ?s high-resolution flat-panel televisions, bigger is always better, according to the September issue of Traditional Home.

The magazine advises putting the TV at eye level. Otherwise viewers may suffer cricks in their necks.

The space above the fireplace mantel is usually too high for comfortable viewing. If this is the only place your TV will fit, consider an articulating arm that extends the TV and tips it toward the viewers.